How do you stop being tired?

[mousme]

Adulthood seems to just be an endless state of tiredness punctuated by sleep. I cannot say that I enjoy or recommend it.

For the most part I have been really careful about sleep, especially when I was working shifts and by necessity was getting a lot less sleep and less quality sleep, so I was very protective of the sleep I was getting at the time. I'm back on shifts now, but it's no longer the punishing 12-hour shifts of the RCMP. Most of my shifts are 8 hours, with two weekend shifts every two months that are 12 hours long. The rest of the time I'm usually able to go to sleep and stay in bed for 8 hours even if I'm not technically asleep the whole time. My Fitbit helpfully points out that I'm "awake" for at least an hour each night.

All this to say that I am deeply offended by my body insisting on being tired. Like, an unreasonable level of fatigue, quite frankly. I wake up groggy and spend most of the day dragging, and if I'm very lucky on some days I'll get a wee burst of energy that will last a couple of hours at best. If I act on that burst of energy and do something crazy like clean my house or run errands, then I will pay for it for days afterward in the form of even more fatigue. Stupid flesh suit.

On the off-chance that some of this is due to a sleep disorder of some kind, I have a referral for a sleep study. The request was made last June and I haven't heard anything, but I've read that it can take up to 18 months in some cases for the sleep study to happen, and after that it can take another 6 to 12 months to actually get anything done based on the results. So if it is a sleep disorder I have to figure out a way to live with it for at least another two years.

So I guess I'll keep looking for "hacks" (I am really starting to hate that word) to try to be less tired. It's been interfering with everything in my life, because lately it's all I can do to just go to work and come home. Even mundane things like groceries or doing laundry feels exhausting, and I don't have any energy left over for things like gardening or even reading or creative writing. I have so many ideas for projects and I just can't bring myself to start any of them. Worst of all, I can't drag myself out of bed in a timely fashion on my days off work. Even if I swear to myself that I'm going to do better, set alarms, set intentions, try to stack my habits or whatever, nothing seems to wrok long-term. Each trick works once or twice, but afterward I find myself sleeping well past when I'd like to wake up, sometimes into the afternoon, and then more than half my day is gone.

Anyway, I obviously don't have a good solution to all of this nonsense. I'm just venting for now. If I do find a fix for it, I will let you know.

And, on that note, it's time for bed.

Comments

[sirena73]

I know I'm just a person on the internet so take my un-asked for advice with a handful of salt, but I think you should make a doctor appointment and not wait for the sleep study. That level of unrelenting fatigue could be a warning sign of something else going on, so please get checked out soon. <3

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I agree with you. I have been to my new doctor (my old, excellent doctor got burned out by the pandemic and left medicine entirely) and she is unfortunately firmly in the "it's normal to be tired because you're a middle aged woman and there's nothing we can try, but sure, I'll send in a request for a sleep study, I guess," camp.

Out of desperation I have made an appointment with a naturopath at the end of this month, because they're allowed to order blood tests and the like to check hormone levels and other things. I am not usually a seeker of alternative medicines, but right now conventional medicine is shrugging at me and refusing to try, so alternative it is.